Boy A

The past looms forebodingly throughout Boy A, threatening to capsize its protagonist’s fragile vessel of a life. It’s a lovely surprise, then, that the grace notes found within this artful character study have their roots in the pleasures and perils of the here-and-now. Directed with a fine eye for spatial detail by John Crowley and featuring a heartrending performance by newcomer Andrew Garfield, the film captures the minute fluctuations in intimacy and temperament, the hope and hesitancy, which define the opening pages of a new life chapter. If the possibility of exposure and rejection for bygone transgressions hums queasily under even the most blissful moments, such danger only intensifies Boy A’s clear-eyed pathos: the potential for devastation all the more reason to embrace momentary happiness. Click here to read the rest of Matt Connolly's review of Boy A.